http://www.inspirationforum.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=2131

Our Interview with Edward McKeown

Name Edward McKeown

Age
EFM Ahem over the age of consent in a youth-obsessed culture ;-)

Where are you from-
EFM originally from NYC the Big Apple.
A little about your self `ie your education Family life ect

EFM A fascinating subject indeed ;-) I’m a writer living in Charlotte, NC USA. I have a wide varierty of interests: I’m a black belt/sash with the Lai Tai Pung Style, a ballroom dancer (ok I am better at the kicking and punching) I’ve had a life-long love of SF and Fantasy. I have been married to the talented artist, Schelly Keefer for the best (in every sense) part of my life.

Fiona: Tell us your latest news?
EFM The big news for me is the publication of my first novel Was Once A Hero through Hellfire Publishing. http://www.amazon.com/Was-Once-A-Hero-eb...528&sr=1-1 We are out with the e-version now and print to follow soon.

Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?
EFM I took it up seriously about ten years ago when I was inspired by my good friend Tim McLoughlin, who wrote a book called “Heart of the Old Country” which was made into the movie the “The Narrows.” Knowing someone who had “made the grade” inspired me to try.

Fiona: When did you first consider yourself a writer?
EFM I would say when I got into the hardcover anthology Lowport by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller for my campy SF noir story, “Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess,” which later grew into my most popular series. http://www.amazon.com/Hot-read-collectio...195&sr=1-1

Fiona: What inspired you to write your first book?
EFM I love what I call the “Planet” story where a crew of diverse people of wildly different talents and motivations are cast into the crucible of a totally new environment. I want starships, alien cultures and worlds, and adventure but I always leaven it with a strong romantic element. It seemed that sort of book was growing uncommon. So while in my short fiction I tended toward urban fantasy or humorous SF shorts (doesn’t that sound like a form of kinky underwear?) at novel length I wanted to deal seriously with questions of love and courage.

Fiona: Do you have a specific writing style?
EFM No, not that I am aware of. The Robert Fenaday/Shasti Rainhell books (Was Once A Hero being the first in a trilogy) are in third person past tense. The current books I am working on with an ancient alien android named Maauro and her newfound friend, the disgraced military pilot Wrik Trigardt, are in first person past tense for Wrik and first person present for Maauro to highlight the fact that she as an essentially deathless AI does not experience time the same way.

Fiona: How did you come up with the title?
EFM I wanted to touch on the fact that a man or being can be a Hero in one instance and something very different in another. Courage is a mutable quality

Fiona: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
EFM Too many characters in science-fiction are too heroic, too unafraid, and too matter-of-fact about danger. Those of us who have faced danger and triumphed over it usually did it either with our hearts in our mouths, fighting to overcome fear, or it was over so fast that we didn’t have time for panic. There are surely people of steely nerves and endless reserves of courage (check your local Seal Team) but they are not common. Most of us struggle to find courage and apply it. So I decided that my character would be a man, drawn from a more ordinary life, no Captain Kirk, no Captain Sheridan, but someone more like one of us.
Another them was the potential for violence in the best of men. This came out of knowing some World War II vets, genial men, all heroes in my eyes, many who seemed like they would not harm a fly. Yet these were the amtrac gunners at Tarawa, the crew in the B-17 from the mighty Eighth, the marine crouching in the darkness at the edge of Henderson Field when the banzai charges came in. That geniality masked the fact that we ordinary men are capable of deeds that scar the soul. However gentle and kind we are to friends and family, in the right situation we can be the instruments of immense destruction. So this would be a theme that I would explore in my book. There times in the trilogy that you will feel very ambivalent about Robert and or Shasti. You should, they themselves do.

Fiona: How much of the book is realistic?
EFM I try to have an underlying verity in all that I do. Obviously not being a combat veteran or an astronaut, there is a limit to that. But as a martial artist, I worked out most of the fights that in my books by having my class attack me in the same manner.
Fear on the other hand is as well known to me as to any man. I have had a gun pulled on me and been shot at in that disinterested fashion people are shot at in NYC (i.e crazy person shooting at something else in the area.) I captured a mugger, ok it was a small one, and the police threw it back a few days later but heck I pinned him in a doorway until the cops came. I’ve lost friends and acquaintances to violence.
In the second Fenaday book he is parajumping. I used my own parajumps for the sensations; the watery feeling in the gut before, the snapping of the chute and the sudden jerk of the harness. How it felt to jump into the dark. Ditto for flying belted onto the floor of a helicopter at treetop height or in a hang-glider.
In the love story, well I have both won and lost in love, been elated and uncertain and all that is used.
Regarding the science: I am not a scientist though I know several. I take the minimum liberties with science that I must. My starships have hyperdrive and AG, but once they get from star to star, they drive around a solar system by throwing reaction mass out the rear of their atomic engines in Einsteinien space. Weapons similarly are extrapolations of current ones but with less emphasis on energy weapons. It will always be cheaper to accelerate a piece of something whether by expanding gas or or electromagnetism, through an enemy than to disintergatet something.

Fiona: Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
EFM Only in as much as loneliness, loss, love, fear and triumph are part of all of our lives.

Fiona: What books have most influenced your life most?
EFM Wow hard one. The works of Andre Norton started me on this path and I retain my love of these tales of otherworld. The characters are usually the loner, the uncertain young person facing a hostile world, these spoke to me clearly in my childhood. I would cite Star Gate, The Stars our Ours and the Zero Stone as big influences. C J Cherryh with her Morgaine series introduced me to a serious minded and strong heroine who did not have to outmuscle the boys to outplay them. No one does aliens better than Niven in his Known Space Work. In Fantasy the Lord of the Rings vied with the Robert Howard Conan works for supremacy. I have a copy of Jack Sutton’s the Beyond that was one of the first books I felt a powerful connection to.

Fiona: If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
EFM I have been helped a great deal by a number of people: Orson Scott Card with his bootcamp class, Mike Resnick as generous a grandmaster as lives, Catherine Asaro who is proof brains and beauty can travel together and C J Cherryh an occasional correspondent who has offered encouragement at opportune times and Janet Morris who wrote an introduction for me..

Fiona: What book are you reading now?
EFM Actually for a break I am reading one of Kathy Reichs, “Bones” series I try to very my reading out of the genre but rarely read other fiction. I am a history buff because the weird stuff that real people do is more interesting. Ins’t that true, General Custer?

Fiona: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
EFM This is something I am kind of grappling with, most of the authors I know or read are older and I am looking for some new ones to follow, yet Steampunk does not appeal to me and it seems like there are about 300 leather-clad, bare-midriffed hot girls boffing vampires while dating werewolves or vice-versa. I even satirized that trend in the second Sha’daa anthology Last Call that I wrote in the piece “I Kill Zombies” with the character of Raven Blackstone. http://www.amazon.com/Shadaa-Last-Call-M..._ep_dpi_10
I would love some recommendations to keep me in touch with the current New Wave. I am finding a lot of the game tie in SF and Fantasy just… without flavor. So who do YOU like?

Fiona: What are your current projects?
EFM I am writing the second Maauro novel, looking at a Shasti Rainhell novel (she’s the gorgeous girl with the muscles on the cover of Was Once a Hero) and some more short stories based on my recent trip to Europe. The first one of these “Death in Venice” is being offered for sale now
Fiona: Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.

EFM The Brinkers Writing Group: Laura Jean Stroupe, Kim Wright (Love in Mid- Air) Paul Barrett (my own discovery who I have put in two anthologies) Leigh Jenkins, Alan Jenkins, Mark Kust, Shontelle MaQueen all fine writers in their own rights who make me a hell of a lot better than I would ever have been on my own
Otherise it has to be Hellfire Publishing, Keira Kroft aka Dawn Binkley who is running with the Fenaday Trilogy, a wonderful and encouraging lady with a boundless source of energy and enthusiasm.

Fiona: Do you see writing as a career?
I do but as a means of making a living it is like acting, for every one person making a living at it, 100 have day jobs and write on the weekend or holidays had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

EFM Like every writer you always want to improve something but as with cooking, you have to stop before you ruin the dish by destroying its spontanaeity or you never get to the next work either.

Fiona: Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?
EFM I think like many it was a moment of ego reading a book, putting it down and saying, “Heck , I can write better than that!” You mercifully don’t find out right away that you were wrong by then you may have developed some skills.

Fiona: Can you share a little of your current work with us?

Quote:EFM How about an excerpt from Was Once A Hero to whet your appetite?
“There’s Gigor,” Fenaday said. The sun cleared the horizon and its rays lit the tops of trees and buildings, leaving the field still cloaked in purple shadow. He heard Shasti’s seat creak as she leaned forward to look beyond the backrest of his seat. Fenaday put the Wildcat in a slow circle at a height of four hundred meters. Shasti and he looked out at the devastated base. Gigor base extended for tens of kilometers. The beige and yellow Enshari buildings in the distance had the squat and unlovely utilitarian look favored by governments. Beyond them, toward the city proper lay the domes and half-domes preferred by the Enshari. Shattered glass in those buildings splintered and threw back the sunlight.
“Looks worse than it did from orbit,” she said.
“Yeah,” Fenaday said. “No question that the base was attacked. By what I can’t imagine, the pattern of destruction doesn’t resemble that from an airburst nuclear weapon. Nothing else I know of—not even a mass driver—creates destruction like this.”
“Only a few military spaceships were based at Gigor,” Shasti said. “Most Navy traffic used the port at the capital city of Barjan.”
Fenaday pointed. “There’s the Navy area. It’s completely destroyed.” They had seen all this from orbit, but it lacked the effect of viewing it with their own eyes.
“Notice something?” asked Shasti.
“Yeah,” Fenaday replied. “Those shuttles on the apron look like they were cut down by a laser fired from ground level. See that neat slice on the metal of that green and white hospital shuttle? It’s cut almost in half. Whatever it was started striking the ground at a low angle, bubbling the apron.”
“Energy weapons don’t work that way,” Shasti said. “Why use massive quantities of power to cut metal when a kinetic weapon does it cheaper and faster? Lasers are for burning flesh, starting fires and damaging sensitive instruments—-”
“These are a few of your favorite things,” Fenaday murmured.
Shasti ignored the comment, “Well, this isn’t Conchirri work. If they had energy weapons like this, we would all be dinner.”
Fenaday brought the Wildcat to a hover near the edge of the apron close to the barracks. The sun had risen enough to light the field. A brilliant, dark-blue ground cover, reminiscent of pansies, dotted some of the nearby tarmac.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said tightly. “Are you ready, Shasti?”
“Locked and loaded,” she said, putting her tri-auto in her lap.
“Telisan, this is Fenaday. I’m going in. Keep circling. If anything happens, run for it. That is an order.”
“Of course,” replied Telisan. The Denlenn’s easy answer made Fenaday suspect Telisan was simply humoring him.
“Fenaday to Sidhe, we are landing.”
The fighter landed smoothly, blowing dust and debris away from the Wildcat. Fenaday throttled back the engines, but didn’t cut them off. He kept the HOTAS stick, which controlled thrust and weapons, in his right hand. Fenaday looked to starboard, Shasti to port. The fighter’s swivel-mounted guns followed the motion of his eyes. The Confed shuttles from the first expedition landed only sixty-three seconds before being overwhelmed by whatever killed their crews. Fenaday didn’t look at the clock. He scanned every shadow, dreading the sight of a dust cloud similar to the one that enveloped the Confederate shuttles three years ago. Telisan circled above, equally vigilant.
From Perez’ station aboard Sidhe, the engineer announced, “Thirty seconds.”
Fenaday kept his eyes on the ground. His heart pounded and his mouth felt dry. “Nothing in sight,” he reported. To his own surprise, his voice sounded calm.
“All clear here,” Shasti said. She didn’t even have the grace to sound concerned.
“Same,” Telisan reported. “Nothing on motion sensors.”
“Forty-five seconds.”
For an instant, Fenaday thought about saying something to Shasti, something about the night before. He snapped a quick glance into the one of the mirrors. She stared out the canopy, catlike, intent, totally focused on here and now.
He returned his attention to the field.
“Sixty seconds.”
Fenaday held his breath, his finger on the trigger.
“Seventy seconds, Captain. Congratulations on a new world record.”
The breath left his body in a whoosh.
“Okay,” he said, voice shaking slightly. “I’m heading into overheat, initiating engine shutdown.
“Telisan, keep circling. Perez, start the shuttles down. Tell Karass he is to abort if at any time we lose contact before landing.”
Fiona: Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
EFM Plot. I can find characters to fill an auditorium and can write reams of dialogue. Finding a strong and viable plot for them to inhabit is where the heavy lifting comes in.

Fiona: Do you have to travel much concerning your book(s)?
EFM Not so far but it is early days yet. I plan to do Concarolinas and Libertycon.

Fiona: Who designed the covers?

EFM I have a friend who is a glamor photographer, Michael Church, occasionally I tear him away from photographing beautiful women and he does a cover for me. I will include a couple below. Michael can find a good angle on anyone and is interested in doing more covers and I cannot recommend him highly enough. http://www.michaelchurch.com

Fiona: What was the hardest part of writing your book?
None of writing the book was hard, critiquing is slightly more difficult, marketing it is where suffering comes in.

Fiona: Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?
EFM I learned that when you really love doing something, it’s not work. I actually do not feel well if I go for too long without writing. I hope it always stays that way.

Fiona: Do you have any advice for other writers?
EFM The difference between the pro and the amateur is that amateur gave up. You have to have the hide of a rhino to do this and you have to write. Don’t try to produce perfect work or you will never produce anything. Line up words and get moving. But the best advice I got was from Orson Scott Card and it’s a mistake a lot of us make early on. We go for the action, the big bang. It’s more important to make us CARE about people and what is happening. Otherwise the big bang means little if all it is doing is taking out faceless stormtroopers or other “red shirts” (Star Trek geek reference). If I care what is going on and to whom it is happening, a paper cut can have the significance of an atom bomb

Fiona: Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
EFM Yes, thanks. It is an astonishing experience to become part of other people’s lives in this way. If anything I write ever encourages you, eases a heartache, or makes you feel less alone, well then it was all worth it.

Fiona: If you were not a writer what else would you like to have done ?
EFM A full time martial arts instructor, I discovered the art as an adult. Had I found it as a child I think it would have made a huge difference to my life not that I am unhappy at all about how it has gone. Roads not travelled always beckon but who knows where they lead?

Fiona: Do you have a blog/website? if so what is it?
http://www.sfreader.com/authors/edward-mcKeown/
http://emckeown-edwriter.blogspot.com/20...dward.html

See you around the galaxy,
Edward McKeown

In Defense of Human Spaceflight

“And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close, with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good earth.” Frank Boreman Apollo 8 “Robotic exploration is to real exploration as masturbation is to glorious, loving sex.”- Anonymous Nothing is more irrelevant than the supposition, even if true, that robots can carry out space exploration better than humans can. The exploration of space is not only a matter of thrust ratios, frequencies and angstroms; it is a matter both of our survival and of our spiritual and moral growth as a species. Are we merely dust that through some accident of cosmic proportions has become aware of itself? Are we the only life in all the long, lonely, light-years? Or are we travelers in time and space on a journey searching for “The Meaning of it All?” That search proceeds outward in every direction every day. Down into the microbe and the most basic bits of life, outward into the heavens at the limits of visual, X-ray and radio telescopes. In the quiet moments when we contemplate the universe in our individual lives, whether in a monk’s meditation at a monastery, a child’s prayer or the appreciation of some wild and untouched place. This is the distinction between us and our machines. The plucky rovers on Mars are not plucky- that is anthropomorphism. Nor are they exhilarated by the awe and mystery that reaches from, “the inner mind to the Outer Limits.” They will never call back from Mars saying, “Mars is so cool!” and refer to anything more than the temperature. They are not self-aware. They have no possibility of an existence after this, no chance that they could ever be more than they are at this moment.

Can’t we get our thrills secondhand? No. A camera is not an eye and a rover is not a person. Does anyone believe that Sojourner on Mars had the impact of Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man?” on our moon? We go to the ocean depths, the clouds and the vacuum beyond, not merely for commerce, not only to fight our battles, but to gain new perspectives on our condition, and ourselves new measurements for our awareness. To anyone who has seen the Mona Lisa in person, seeing it on TV or in an art book is meaningless. The original cannot be captured, it must be experienced.

Perhaps a better example came from my own experience.  My wife and I were walking at the wonderful Asheville zoo.  We were on a stairway; unbeknownst to us we were just outside the lion’s exhibit.  A lion roared.  I’ve heard the MGM lion do it at movies for years.  But this wasn’t a recording.  It was a real lion at point blank range and it bypassed our conscious minds to hit our hindbrains first.  My wife flew up the stairs in a blur.  Black belt that I am, I snapped around in a fighting stance faster than ever before.  A classic example of fight-flight reflexes, for all that my only chance against the lion would have been to choke it to death by stuffing myself down its gullet.  You can watch “Animal Planet” until hell freezes over and it will not for one instant, approximate the reality of what is like to hear a lion roar in person.

There are of course the usual arguments against humans in space.  But let’s start with an examination of that statement, “humans in space.”  Humanity is now and has always been “in space.”  The thing in the sky is a G-2 main sequence star perhaps halfway through its lifespan.  Its attributes govern every second of our existence on this ball of rock we live on.  We are in space every moment of our life.  The so-called “realists” who think of space as something outré, that doesn’t involve them, suffer from myopia of epic proportions, like an astronomer who looks through the wrong end of a telescope.

Space has and can intrude on even their parochial world in an instant.  October 29, 2003 - the Halloween Storm - spawned auroras that were seen over most of North America.  Extensive satellite problems were reported, including the loss of the $450 million Midori-2 research satellite.  A huge solar storm impacted the Earth, just 19 hours after leaving the sun.  Days later on November 4, 2003, one of the most powerful X-ray flares ever detected swamped the sensors of dozens of satellites, causing satellite operations anomalies.  Astronauts hid as deep as they could go in the International Space Station, but still reported radiation effects including ocular “shooting stars.”

Meteor Crater lies thirty-five miles from Flagstaff, Arizona.  It dates from an impact 50,000 years ago.  We were here.  We just weren’t under that one as humans hadn't reached North America.  Which is good, as this was a 2.5 megaton wake-up call.  That was utterly dwarfed by the 1908 event in Tunguska, Siberia.  That event, thought to be an airburst of a bit of cosmic flotsam, was in the 10-15 megaton range, right up there with a strategic-level hydrogen fusion bomb.  These cosmic marbles aren’t gone and there is nothing that says Earth’s orbit is sacrosanct from them just because we have cell phones, cable TV and it would be gosh darn inconvenient for us to stop a thirty-five mile long rock at 45,000 mph. 

Mars is due to get one of those later this year.  It will come in over one of the Mars rovers, who will not note it with anything other than detached mechanical efficiency, if their limited instrument packages allow them to take any note at all.  We will get to see it on TV, but there, my friends, for the grace of God, go we.

I remember looking up at comet Hale-Bopp during its last approach to Earth.  While others were enjoying the cosmic light show (and I won’t claim to be immune to that) I did realize that I was looking at global species extinction mere light-minutes away, had the orbit been a little different.  A miss is as good as a mile with cosmic bowling but you are playing for all the marbles.  When you look at the moon, realize that you are looking at a body created because something hit the good earth we’re standing on, hard enough to tear that bit off and hurl it into the sky.  If that is too big for you, too out there and distant for your contemplation, go stand by Upheaval dome in Utah. 

But a mere chunk of rock is survivable.  It’s not likely to get all of us.  Though it could.  Even if it didn’t wipe us all out, would a technic civilization ever arise again?  We’ve mined most of the easily reachable resources around.  Could we start over again?

There are greater terrors in space that could whiff out our planet like a child blows out a candle on a birthday cake.  We can protect ourselves and our genetic heritage from some of them.  Asteroids might be pushed or blasted away from us but if a gamma ray burst goes off in our local area of space, well, game over.  Even basic levels of local space control will entail investment in infrastructure in space that dwarf all we have done to date.  We will need stations and not merely something like the International Space Station, but true factories, colonial stations and deep-space ships.  This can’t be thrown together from nothing, despite what Bruce Willis’ did in “Armageddon.”

Some of the “robot-firsters” will decry manned space, their advocacy exceeding that of Asimov’s Susan Calvin, “It’s too expensive.” They will be joined by the social engineers, “We need all the money to solve our problems down here on Earth.” 

Disabuse yourself of the notion that if all Earth’s miniscule space budgets were plowed into the social budgets of countries, that there would be a measurable decrease in the world’s problems.  Trillions have been poured into anti-poverty programs.  Whether this has been effective or not is a discussion for another place- however one must notice that poverty, ignorance and warfare are doing quite well.  If they were a stock they might have gone up like you hope your 401K would.  In any event, the world’s space budget is a mere rounding error on social spending.

Even more fundamentally, the two issues are unrelated.  Space is a technological battle with a social component.  Poverty is a political and social problem and far less a scientific one.  It is related to the nature of our species and its existence.  Or as my Dad put it in the most basic terms, “ If at the beginning of time you gave everyone in the world a refrigerator, at the end of the first month there would be those with a thousand refrigerators and those with none.”  And so it will always be.

Space is not simply a hole into which money that could be better used for food stamps or worker retraining is flushed.  It fundamentally helps economies and the poor.  The single most powerful example of this is the weather satellite.  Storms that sank ships and destroyed cities are now spotted early enough for avoidance and evacuation.  Farmers have the ability to plan for weather and crop management in a way their ancestors could not have dreamed of. 

Communication satellites make the world one huge party line.  The president of the United States and the premier of China can speak in real-time.  A doctor in New York City can diagnose and help treat an appendectomy in Antarctica.  On a more basic level, electronics have become so reliable they are almost taken for granted.  We have computer chips, solar cells, biomedical sensors, cell phones, blackberrys and laptops from the space program’s drive for technology.

Other may piously intone that we should not go out in to space until we get our act together as a species.  The idea that we must somehow correct all of Earth’s ills or somehow evolve to a pure state of political organization is naiveté.  Or if it is not, it may well be that in exploring space we will gain the perspectives needed to allow change to come.  Perhaps we will truly come to see Spaceship Earth as the small fragile place it is, with no safe place to leave our hazardous junk and no crew who are unimportant.  Earthrise on the moon made a seachange in how we see ourselves and our little blue marble.  The rise of the world-wide ecological movement has some root in the arid soil of the moon.

But there is no sign on the cosmic rollercoaster that says you must be this tall and morally evolved to take this ride.  I do not see our species changing that much as we head to the stars.  We are man most mortal and doomed to die (for all we are putting it off as far as we can each generation).  We will lie, pollute and corruptly make our way among the stars.  And why not?  We were not made as angels and we will not become angels anytime soon.  We were not required to be angels when we left the cave, when we left Africa, when we walked the land bridge into America and when we sailed from Europe.  The sanctimonious, who set themselves over the rest of us in judgment, will probably never find us fit enough for the stars.  Had it been left to them we’d still be in caves. 

Our machines are our tools and servants, good ones too.  We will take them with us and occasionally send them ahead for there will be hells in the galaxy that no mother’s child should face.  We will leave some of those to our mechanical friends.  But if our footprints do not overtake their tires and tracks, if we do not confront God’s handiwork and wrest from it the “meaning of it all” then we might have as well stayed home with our Xbox, playing HALO and watching Lucas and Spielberg’s more interesting pictures of space.  Or perhaps in the anteroom to Hell we will meet the dinosaurs-they will look at us and say with sympathy born of a mutual fate.  “Asteroid?  Bummer.  So you didn’t have a space program either?”    

Sidebar Spacer Spinoffs (Editors Note this can obviously be as short or long as serves your purposes)

Computer Technology - NASA Spinoffs

SEMICONDUCTOR CUBING - NASA initiative led to the Memory Short Stack, a three-dimensional semiconductor package in which dozens of integrated circuits are stacked one atop another to form a cube, offering faster computer processing speeds, higher levels of integration, lower power requirements than conventional chip sets, and dramatic reduction in the size and weight of memory-intensive systems, such as medical imaging devices.

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS - This NASA program, originally created for spacecraft design, has been employed in a broad array of non-aerospace applications, such as the automobile industry, manufacture of machine tools, and hardware designs.

AIR QUALITY MONITOR - Utilizing a NASA-developed, advanced analytical technique software package, an air quality monitor system was created, capable of separating the various gases in bulk smokestack exhaust streams and determining the amount of individual gases present within the stream for compliance with smokestack emission standards.

VIRTUAL REALITY - NASA-developed research allows a user, with assistance from advanced technology devices, to figuratively project oneself into a computer-generated environment, matching the user's head motion, and, when coupled with a stereo viewing device and appropriate software, creates a telepresence experience.

Consumer/Home/Recreation - NASA Spinoffs

ENRICHED BABY FOOD - A microalgae-based, vegetable-like oil called Formulaid developed from NASA-sponsored research on long duration space travel, contains two essential fatty acids found in human milk but not in most baby formulas, believed to be important for infants' mental and visual development.

WATER PURIFICATION SYSTEM - NASA-developed municipal-size water treatment system for developing nations, called the Regenerable Biocide Delivery Unit, uses iodine rather than chlorine to kill bacteria.

SCRATCH-RESISTANT LENSES - A modified version of a dual ion beam bonding process developed by NASA involves coating the lenses with a film of diamond-like carbon that not only provides scratch resistance, but also decreases surface friction, reducing water spots.

POOL PURIFICATION - Space technology designed to sterilize water on long-duration spacecraft applied to swimming pool purification led to a system that uses two silver-copper alloy electrodes that generate silver and copper ions when an electric current passes through them to kill bacteria and algae without chemicals.

RIBBED SWIMSUIT - NASA-developed riblets applied to competition swimsuits resulted in flume testing of 10 to 15 percent faster speeds than any other world class swim-suit due to the small, barely visible grooves that reduce friction and aerodynamic drag by modifying the turbulent airflow next to the skin.

GOLF BALL AERODYNAMICS - A recently designed golf ball, which has 500 dimples arranged in a pattern of 60 spherical triangles, employs NASA aerodynamics technology to create a more symmetrical ball surface, sustaining initial velocity longer and producing a more stable ball flight for better accuracy and distance.

PORTABLE COOLERS/WARMERS - Based on a NASA-inspired space cooling system employing thermoelectric technology, the portable cooler/warmer plugs into the cigarette lighters of autos, recreational vehicles, boats, or motel outlets. Utilizes one or two miniaturized modules delivering the cooling power of a 10-pound block of ice and the heating power of up to 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

SPORTS TRAINING - Space-developed cardio-muscular conditioner helps athletes increase muscular strength and cardiovascular fitness through kinetic exercise.

ATHLETIC SHOES - Moon Boot material encapsulated in running shoe midsoles improve shock absorption and provides superior stability and motion control.

Environmental and Resource Management - NASA Spinoffs

MICROSPHERES - The first commercial products manufactured in orbit are tiny microspheres whose precise dimensions permit their use as reference standards for extremely accurate calibration of instruments in research and industrial laboratories. They are sold for applications in environmental control, medical research, and manufacturing.

SOLAR ENERGY - NASA-pioneered photovoltaic power system for spacecraft applications was applied to programs to expand terrestrial applications as a viable alternative energy source in areas where no conventional power source exists.

WEATHER FORECASTING AID - Space Shuttle environmental control technology led to the development of the Barorator which continuously measures the atmospheric pressure and calculates the instantaneous rate of change.

FOREST MANAGEMENT - A NASA-initiated satellite scanning system monitors and maps forestation by detecting radiation reflected and emitted from trees.

SENSORS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL - NASA development of an instrument for use in space life support research led to commercial development of a system to monitor an industrial process stream to assure that the effluent water's pH level is in compliance with environmental regulations.

WIND MONITOR - Development of Jimsphere wind measurement balloon for space launches allows for making high resolution measurements of the wind profile for meteorological studies and predictions.

TELEMETRY SYSTEMS - A spinoff company formed to commercialize NASA high-data-rate telemetry technology, manufactures a high-speed processing system for commercial communications applications.

PLANT RESEARCH - NASA research on future moon and Mars bases is investigating using plants for food, oxygen, and water to reduce the need for outside supplies. This research utilizes Hydroponics (liquid nutrient solutions) instead of soil to support plant growth and finds applications for vegetable production on Earth.

FIRE RESISTANT MATERIAL - Materials include chemically-treated fabric for sheets, uniforms for hazardous material handlers, crew's clothing, furniture, interior walls of submersibles and auto racer and refueler suits.

RADIATION INSULATION - Aluminized polymer film is highly effective radiation barrier for both manned and unmanned spacecraft. Variations of this space-devised material are also used as an energy conservation technique for homes and offices. The materials are placed between wall studs and exterior facing before siding or between roof support and roof sheathing. The radiant barrier blocks 95% of radiant energy. Successful retrofit installations include schools and shrink wrap ovens.

purification.

Health and Medicine - NASA Spinoffs

DIGITAL IMAGING BREAST BIOPSY SYSTEM - The LORAD Stereo Guide Breast Biopsy system incorporates advanced Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) as part of a digital camera system. The resulting device images breast tissue more clearly and efficiently. Known as stereotactic large-core needle biopsy, this nonsurgical system developed with Space Telescope Technology is less traumatic and greatly reduces the pain, scarring, radiation exposure, time, and money associated with surgical biopsies.

BREAST CANCER DETECTION - A solar cell sensor is positioned directly beneath x-ray film, and determines exactly when film has received sufficient radiation and has been exposed to optimum density. Associated electronic equipment then sends a signal to cut off the x-ray source. Reduction of mammography x-ray exposure reduces radiation hazard and doubles the number of patient exams per machine.

LASER ANGIOPLASTY - Laser angioplasty with a "cool" type of laser, caller an excimer laser, does not damage blood vessel walls and offers precise non-surgical cleanings of clogged arteries with extraordinary precision and fewer complications than in balloon angioplasty.

ULTRASOUND SKIN DAMAGE ASSESSMENT - Advanced instrument using NASA ultrasound technology enables immediate assessment of burn damage depth, improving patient treatment, and may save lives in serious burn cases.

HUMAN TISSUE STIMULATOR - Employing NASA satellite technology, the device is implanted in the body to help patient control chronic pain and involuntary motion disorders through electrical stimulation of targeted nerve centers or particular areas of the brain.

COOL SUIT - Custom-made suit derived from space suits circulates coolant through tubes to lower patient's body/ temperature, producing dramatic improvement of symptoms of multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, spina bifida and other conditions.

PROGRAMMABLE PACEMAKER - Incorporating multiple NASA technologies, the system consists of the implant and a physician's computer console containing the programming and a data printer. Communicates through wireless telemetry signals.

OCULAR SCREENING - NASA image processing techniques are used to detect eye problems in very young children. An electronic flash from a 35-millimeter camera sends light into the child's eyes, and a photorefractor analyzes the retinal reflexes, producing an image of each eye.

AUTOMATED URINALYSIS - NASA fluid dynamics studies helped development of system that automatically extracts and transfers sediment from urine sample to an analyzer microscope, replacing the manual centrifuge method.

MEDICAL GAS ANALYZER - Astronaut-monitoring technology used to develop system to monitor operating rooms for analysis of anesthetic gasses and measurement of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen concentrations to assure proper breathing environment for surgery patients.

VOICE-CONTROLLED WHEELCHAIR - NASA teleoperator and robot technology used to develop chair and manipulator that respond to 35 one-word voice commands utilizing a minicomputer to help patient perform daily tasks, like picking up packages, opening doors, and turning on appliances.

Industrial Productivity/Manufacturing Technology - NASA Spinoffs

MAGNETIC LIQUIDS - Based on the NASA-developed ferrofluid concept involving synthetic fluids that can be positioned and controlled by magnetic force, the ferrofluidic seal was initially applied in a zero-leakage, nonwearing seal for the rotating shaft of a system used to make semiconductor chips, solving a persistent problem‹contamination due to leaking seals.

WELDING SENSOR SYSTEM - Laser-based automated welder for industrial use incorporates a laser sensor system originally designed for Space Shuttle External Tank to track the seam where two pieces of metal are to be joined, measures gaps and minute misfits, and automatically corrects the welding torch distance and height.

MICROLASERS - Based on a concept for optical communications over interplanetary distances, microlasers were developed for the commercial market to transmit communication signals and to drill, cut, or melt materials.

MAGNETIC BEARING SYSTEM - Bearings developed from Space Shuttle designs support moving machinery without physical contact, permitting motion without friction or wear, and are now used in electric power generation, petroleum refining, machine tool operation, and natural gas pipelines.

ENGINE LUBRICANT - A NASA-developed plasma-sprayed coating is used to coat valves in a new, ten-inch-long, four-cylinder rotary engine, eliminating the need for lubricating the rotorcam, which has no crankshaft, flywheel, distributor, or water pump.

INTERACTIVE COMPUTER TRAINING - Known as Interactive Multimedia Training (IMT), originally developed to train astronauts and space operations personnel, now utilized by the commercial sector to train new employees and upgrade worker skills, using a computer system that engages all the senses, including text, video, animation, voice, sounds, and music.

HIGH-PRESSURE WATERSTRIPPING - Technology developed for preparing Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters first evolved into the U.S. Air Force's Large Aircraft Robotic Paint Stripping (LARPS) system, and now used in the commercial airline industry, where the waterjet processing reduces coating removal time by 90 percent, using only water at ultra-high pressures up to 55,000 psi.

ADVANCED WELDING TORCH - Based on the Variable Polarity Plasma Arc welding technology, a handheld torch originally developed for joining light alloys used in NASA's External Tank, is now used by major appliance manufacturers for sheet metal welding.

Public Safety - NASA Spinoffs

RADIATION HAZARD DETECTOR - NASA technology has made commercially available new, inexpensive, conveniently carried device for protection of people exposed to potentially dangerous levels of microwave radiation. Weighing only 4 ounces and about the size of a cigarette pack, it can be carried in a shirt pocket or clipped to a belt. Unit sounds an audible alarm when microwave radiation reaches a preset level.

EMERGENCY RESPONSE ROBOT - Remotely-operated robot reduces human injury levels by performing hazardous tasks that would otherwise be handled by humans.

PERSONAL ALARM SYSTEM - Pen-sized ultrasonic transmitter used by prison guards, teachers, the elderly, and disabled to call for help is based on space telemetry technology. Pen transmits a silent signal to receiver that will display the exact location of the emergency.

EMERGENCY RESCUE CUTTERS - Lightweight cutters for freeing accident victims from wreckage developed using NASA pyrotechnic technology.

FIREMAN'S AIR TANKS - Lighter-weight firefighter's air tanks have been developed. New back-pack system weighs only 20 lbs. for 30 minute air supply, 13 lbs. less than conventional firefighting tanks. They are pressurized at 4,500 psia (twice current tanks). A warning device tells the fireman when he or she is running out of air.

PERSONAL STORM WARNING SYSTEM - Lightning detector gives 30-minute warning to golfers, boaters, homeowners, business owners, and private pilots.

SELF-RIGHTING LIFE RAFT - Developed for the Apollo program, fully inflates in 12 seconds and protects lives during extremely adverse weather conditions with self-righting and gravity compensation features.

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Transportation - NASA Spinoffs

STUDLESS WINTER TIRES - Viking Lander parachute shroud material is adapted and used to manufacture radial tires, increasing the tire material's chainlike molecular structure to five times the strength of steel should increase tread life by 10,000 miles.

BETTER BRAKES - New, high-temperature composite space materials provide for better brake linings. Applications include trucks, industrial equipment and passenger cars.

TOLLBOOTH PURIFICATION - A laminar airflow technique used in NASA clean rooms for contamination-free assembly of space equipment is used at tollbooths on bridges and turnpikes to decrease the toll collector's inhalation of exhaust fumes.

WEIGHT SAVING TECHNOLOGY - NASA research on composite materials is used to achieve a 30-percent weight reduction in a twin-turbine helicopter, resulting in a substantial increase in aircraft performance.

IMPROVED AIRCRAFT ENGINE - Multiple NASA developed technological advancements resulted in a cleaner, quieter, more economical commercial aircraft engine known as the high bypass turbofan, featuring a 10-percent reduction in fuel consumption, lower noise levels, and emission reductions of oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and unburned hydrocarbons.

ADVANCED LUBRICANTS - An environmental-friendly lubricant designed to support the Space Shuttle Mobile Launcher Platform led to the development of three commercial lubricants for railroad track maintenance, for electric power company corrosion prevention, and as a hydraulic fluid with an oxidation life of 10,000 hours.

ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM - The Flywheel Energy Storage system, derived from two NASA-sponsored energy storage studies, is a chemical-free, mechanical battery that harnesses the energy of a rapidly spinning wheel and stores it as electricity with 50 times the capacity of a lead-acid battery, very useful for electric vehicles.

NEW WING DESIGN FOR CORPORATE JETS - NASA-developed computer programs resulted in an advanced, lighter, more aerodynamically-efficient new wing for Gulfstream business aircraft.

AIDS TO SCHOOL BUS DESIGN - Manufacturer uses three separate NASA-developed technologies originally developed for aviation and space use in their design and testing of a new school bus chassis. These technologies are a structural analysis computer program infrared stress measurement system, and a ride quality meter system.

Other spinoffs in this area include: Safer bridges, emission testing, airline wheelchairs, electric car, auto

Source http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html

The Intersection of Man and Machine By Edward McKeown

The Intersection of Man and Machine
By Edward McKeown

The intersection of Man and Machine has yielded countless stories in the field of science fiction and fantasy. From the early days of golems and other inanimate base matter suddenly imbued with life, to the modern tales of self-sacrificing terminators, we the living, have sought companions from unlife. We have created in fiction and reality simulacrums of ourselves, beings of steel, silicon and synthetic flesh.


Why do we do it? Why do we explore this heartless place? Why did Mary Shelly write Frankenstein? Why did Lang’s alluring robot haunt the Metropolis of the future? Why did Asimov devote a lifetime to the tales of the man-machine interface, even coming up with laws for a science that did not then exist?

Clearly we are seeking the “other” to hold up a mirror in which we can examine ourselves and our humanity, in the hope that we can better understand our existence and our place in the universe. We project onto our steel brothers many human traits, including the sin of Cain, from Frankenstein to HAL, to see how they struggle with these moral, ethical and existential dilemmas. Is Gort (from the original Day the Earth Stood still not the mindless remake) an ethical being responsible for a killing two soldiers, or is he like Oswald’s gun, a mere device and guiltless? The robots of our dreams take these situations to new heights, sometimes showing us the better side of ourselves as they face their fates without the frailty and fear that “man most mortal and doomed to die” may show in extremis. Who can forget the Iron Giant offering himself to destruction in an effort to save the humans of the town and thereby defining, who he was…Superman.


In the late 20th century the intersection of man and machine developed a new address at the home of the cyborg, that being born of woman who non-the-less is part machine. The cyborg is not a protagonist using technology, he is the technology.
With this breakthrough come a host of emotional, moral and social themes for the writer to play with. This seem very timely with the XXIX Olympiad going into the history books, where for the first time a discussion has been raised about whether a Para Olympian, with his prosthetic replacements is in any sense disabled. His artificial limbs do not fatigue, nor stress like mere flesh and bone. His heart, relieved of the need to pump blood to such a distance, operates more effectively. We still think of prosthetics as emergency replacements for body parts lost to disease or mischance, but for how much longer? What if our crackberry, I-pod addicted, spinnerhead children begin to look at these mechanical replacements as improvements on their healthy limbs? Maybe there should be a red-light at this part of the intersection?
Why not go even further and dispose of the whole ad-hoc, fragile and doomed human body? Evolution is a terrible manufacturer. It just gets you to breeding age. Period. Then it's done and cares not a jot if and when you die. But we care; we want to be immortal.


How many of us would opt for life “in a can?” This theme was explored by Neil R Jones in his Professor Jameson adventures in which the brain of a dead human is resurrected by aliens, who add him to their crew of sexless, robotic adventurers as they wander the universe in search of scientific discoveries.

In a more sophisticated treatment, Shirow's anime/manga “Ghost in the Shell” introduces us to Major Motoko Kusangi, a cyborg anti-terrorist warrior. Born a human, she was “decanted” at an early age into a cyborg body after an airplane crash. Who wouldn’t want to be her? Beautiful forever, linked into every net and database either directly, through ports in her body, or by radio frequency. What she needs to learn, she downloads. She is strong enough to bend steel and leap from building to building, no red cape though. But she is troubled. There is nothing left of her original human body but some gray matter and she is not sure she believes even that. As she says to fellow cyborg, Batou, “Have you ever seen your own brain? How do you know it is there?” She does not know if she is the original human or a copy. In that question is the critical definition of who she is: a human and a free being, or a machine and property of the state?


We do not believe a human becomes less human for the loss of a limb or an eye, but what of when the whole body goes. How much can you lose before you escape humanity? If “you”-- your uniqueness, your “soul” or your “ghost” or however you define it--is not resident in your body, where then does it reside? For Kusanagi the answer is found when she loses her corporeal cyborg body and exists only as conception of herself in the Internet, the sea of data in which the modern civilization floats.
The intersection of man and machine has thus become fraught with a new level of terror. Can the mind survive the mutilation of the body and if so to what degree? There are cautionary tales in science fiction that lead us on several forays into this heartless part of the intersection. Where some, given the life of a Kusanagi or Professor Jameson, reject it in favor of the peace of true death or are forced through grim necessity into battle again and again to save the truly living from the crucible of war. I remember one SF short, probably lost in the mists of an Ace Double, of a soldier activated only for combat, who has so forgotten his biological origins and his past, that he does not realize that he is attacking his own homeworld. Beware the yellow light in this intersection.


At the other side of the intersection, coming our way are the artificial intelligences. Neither sons of Adams or Daughters of Eve but most often made to look such. Is R Daneel Olivaw of the Asimov’s “Caves of Steel” a person or a device? What of Data from Star Trek or the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica? Is consciousness something that can be made just by adding layers of complexity? At what point in the mechanical process of laying down layers of silicon does God’s finger finally transmit the divine spark that makes the Terminator noble, Robbie the Robot of the Forbidden Planet lovable, or any of the robots of our dreams into friends and lovers? Is it even possible that we can create something out of steel and synthetic that deserves the dignity of human rights?


Perhaps we won’t even control or intend this transition. Artificial Intelligence may generate not from our intention, but spontaneously from the sheer complexity of computer nets in the future, such as the Puppeteer in Ghost in the Shell, Skynet in Terminator or in the countless other examples where we design a tool and end up with unexpected company. Our own history is pretty bloody. Even while we struggled for a recognition of the concept of universal human rights, something our Roman, Greek, Chinese, Egyptian etc, ancestors would have regarded as absurd or even immoral, we have had the greatest blood-lettings in the history of our species in our World Wars. It might be a bit much to expect that this new intelligence would be gentle, beneficent or even aware of other “life” so unlike it.


Today these are speculation in the works of hundred of writers, including me. Tomorrow, these may be questions that demand answers. Green light-go.





Edward McKeown
Author of the Fenaday Chronicles, the adventures of Shasti Rainhell, and of Maauro my own contribution to this question of ethical existence. You can see my conception of this ancient android who patterned herself on a game simulation and her friend the spacer, Wrik Trigardt (image by Michael Church)
I also edited Sha’Daa: Tales of the Apocalypse and the upcoming Sha’Daa: Last Call and have contributed to many anthologies.
My first novel, Was Once a Hero (Fenaday Chronicles) will be released in January by Hellfire publications.


http://www.sfreader.com/authors/edward-mcKeown
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004NM9ZU2
http://www.hellfirepublishing.com/hero.html
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Edward-McKeown-Author/128235997209701

Hot reads!

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
This spectacular collection contains Lair of the lesbian Love Goddess, Into the Robot Harem, and Mars Needs men.


Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess

Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess introduces Brian McManus, everyman cop and later private detective, and his sexy partner, Regina Del Mar, and transgender sidekick Freddie Bouvier as they defend the 22nd Century spaceport of New York from alien bad guys. Crime and kinky fun in the shadows of Brooklyn as they hunt an Arcturian smuggler with a very unusual cargo!


Into the Robert Harem

Into the Robert Harem, continues the adventures of Brian McManus, everyman cop of the 22nd century New York Port Authority Police, his sexy and ambitious partner Regina Del Mar and their transgender informant Freddie Bouvier. Regina must infiltrate a Robot Harem as a sexbot after Freddie discovers a plot to assassinate the UN president after a particularly kinky night. McManus has to save them both and prevent interstellar war! Another chapter in the “Lair of the Lesbian Love Goddess” series

Mars needs Men

“Mars needs Men” is a sexy spoof of the noir detective story set in the twenty-second century spaceport of New York City. Port Authority officer Brian McManus, a mature, “everyman” officer, and his young and attractive partner, Regina Del Mar, are assigned the weirder aspects of interstellar relations. This mission is to quietly locate and recover the visiting Martian governor’s nymphomaniac daughter, Avalie. The governor is here to recruit men for Mars after a plague by Sapphist Terrorists wiped out the male gender there. But, while Mom is recruiting volunteers, her daughter Avalie is shopping for studs, whether they want to go or not.
With their transgender informant, Freddie Bouvier, who looks more like a girl than many girls do, they search the New York underworld for Avalie, finding smugglers, firefights, and general mayhem in the process.

Uncharted Stars by Andre Norton a review

Uncharted Stars by Andre Norton

Uncharted Stars is the superior sequel to the Zero Stone and continues the adventures of Murdoc Jern, itinerant jewel dealer and his companion, Eet the mysterious mutant born from a ship’s cat. Eet is not merely a mutant but is the reincarnation of an alien from the time of the Forerunners ancient and powerful aliens long gone from the spaceways.

Jern had obtained a Zero Stone, an artifact of the Forerunners, as an inheritance from his father. The elder Jern was the owner of a pawn shot in a spaceport but is revealed to have been a retired VIP (Veep) in the quasi government of the Thieves Guild. Jern's father collected more than gems and curiosities- he collected secrets and mysteries. One of these, the Zero Stone, cost him his life and set his adopted son wandering the stars, looking for answers.

Zeros stones are sources of power augmenting any ship or weapon they touch. Murdoc learns this in the first book as he is pursued across space by both the Guild and the Space Patrol. At the end of the first book Jern and Eet have won a truce with the Patrol, escaping imprisonment with a reward and a single small zero stone.

Jern and Eet purchase a small ship, with a pilot of dubious character and set off hunting zero stones while trying to make a living off of lesser gems. In this they are frustrated by the fact that the Patrol still lists them as criminals and the Guild still hunts them. Their initial successes come to nothing against this institutional hostility, they are driven further and further into the shadows and closer to the Guild.

But a chance encounter with pirates and a massacred expedition of archeologists put Eet, Jern and their pilot on a course into the depths of space, to the fabled pirate base of Waystar, in the company of a Zacathan scholar they rescued. The lizard being is of an old and honored race still not evolved when the Forerunners roamed space but who hold most of the galaxy’s history in trust and pursue knowledge for its own sake. At Waystar, Jern poses as his father, the former Thieves Guild Veep, to recover a bowl that is actually a star map, showing the homeworld of the Zero Stones.

After many narrow escapes the small expedition heads to that lost and forbidden world and a date with living history.


The Pros: As with the Zero Stone- Norton’s description of gems and gem lore seduces us. There are times that we almost resent the main plot line dragging us away from the various gem-trading expeditions Jern takes us on. We learn to love the flame-tipped zorans and revel in the adventure where we acquire the fabled greenstones of the ice-world. Norton's galaxy doesn’t merely serve the plot line. It is rich and varied and we feel these worlds have their own fascinating histories. We wish we could turn aside and study them more. It’s like a good dinner that tantalizes the pallet but does not quite fill the stomach, leaving us wanting a little more. We sense sometimes that we are on the edge of adventures of other characters that we meet, notably on the ice-world, and that their adventures are as desperate and meaningful to them as Jern’s is to him.

Waystar, the pirate hold is well and vividly described. With its outer shell of dead and looted ships, it’s a place to haunt the imagination.

Yes it is the burgeoning relationship between Eet and Jern, with its highs and lows, its silences, angers and devotion that is the heart of this novel. Jern is determined not to be junior partner in that relationship, despite Eet’s powers and encyclopedic knowledge. The nature of this relationship will be so obvious to you in retrospect, after the big reveal, that you will wonder how you didn’t see this coming.


The Cons: Not many. The book could be longer and more detailed. Norton was not a scientist or a physicist, she never really troubles herself about how any technology works. She has a tendency to hang an “er” on any bit of machinery: blaster, flitter, reader etc.
Sex and sexuality are largely absent from her work, though in this case… well, I will let that be a bit of a surprise.

In sum, Uncharted Stars is the quintessential Norton and loses nothing to being a YA book. I give 9 of 10 stars to this work.

The cover of this old hardbacked version is one of my favorties though the Zacathan looks more like the Jolly Green Giant's cousin than the Gorn-like creature I had envisioned.

By Edward McKeown

Lawyers in Hell

My involvement in Lawyers in Hell came about as do many of my adventures in life, by way of my sense of humor. I was playing with Facebook one day trying to figure out if this was the biggest waster of human time since Rubik’s Cube or God’s gift to enterprising networkers (it’s both) when I chanced across Tempus Thales, the alter ego of Janet Morris. Having read a number of her anthologies and other works, I started corresponding by Facebook with her. Eventually the subject of the Heroes in Hell series came up. As a joke I told her that this field was not exhausted and that I could see room for many other volumes, especially Lawyers in Hell. Three of four rounds of bad lawyer jokes later she suddenly switched gears on me and sent “you’re on.” Next thing I knew this new anthology was taking off around my ears like the spaceship in “When Worlds Collide.”
I’d been in anthologies before and in fact edited two the Sha’Daa series which like the “In Hell” series has common premises and characters. However I was stunned by the wealth, depth and sheer complexity of the Hell series. A lot had come before and a lot more was subtext or implicit.
Well now that I had gotten myself into this I had a story to write. I started thinking of my own hellish experiences of the American legal process. No I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but I have hired and fired my share of them, the latter is fun, sometimes they sob on their Gucci’s. I’d tell you what I do but then I would have to kill you. A quote came to me, that despite the wonders of the Internet I could not pin down, “Due Process is not endless process.” It occurred to me that if that was our goal on earth, in Hell it would be the opposite. So I came up with the idea of an appellate process in Hell and the appellate angel who served in it. The rest came fairly easy.
You might think that in hell “Due process would be a bullet” (Green Beret movie – thank you Internet) but I am sure it is a long and unending series of court dates, postponed motions, and indifference, in short much like the current Italian court system. If you think I am kidding, I was involved in a case of a traffic accident in Italy that was 25 years old when I inherited it, where half the parties had passed on due to to natural causes, and three years later when I left the case, it had no trial date set.
All kidding aside I have a great deal of respect for the legal profession. Rule of law beats the alternative, which is clubbing each other. And as for the lawyers themselves, lawyers don’t sue people, clients sue people, for coffee being too hot, toasters not being safe for bathtubs, and cars accelerating when they claim they are standing on the brake (they’re standing on the gas). Lawyers are a lot like guns, useful for good or evil, but you can’t blame a gun for shooting straight, or a lawyer for representing a wacky client. Well at least I don’t.
Have fun in Hell,
Best
Edward McKeown
http://www.sfreader.com/authors/edward-mcKeown

Deceiver by C J Cherryh

Deceiver (Spoiler Alert!)
CJ Cherryh is the premier writer of what I think of as statecraft science-fiction. This is the stuff that occurs before the bullets start to fly that determines when they fly, how many of them fly and who they are aimed at. It’s what goes on before Seal Team Six is dispatched, though we do get to see some of the running and gunning, particularly when things go wrong or as John F Kennedy used to say, “Some dumb s.o.b doesn’t get the word.”
Deceiver is the 11th book of the Foreigner series that details the fate of a human colony after their ship becomes lost after a hyperspace jump. This isn’t the homogenous crew of the Enterprise but a divided crew that further divides when colonists seek to escape the grim life of the lost ship and the space station it created, literally parachuting to the world below. While the world is hospitable to human life, the local species the Atevi are less so. Not surprising, considering that humans literally tear the roof off their fairly stable high-medieval world.
Imagine the human colonists as Commodore Perry but with no backup, only the firepower at hand and divisions in their own forces and you have the situation. Conflict breaks out, more from misunderstanding than malice. The difference between how the species bond, humans with love and friendship, Atevi from man’chi, which seems a combination of “imprinting” and the desire to be associate upward to a powerful leader in a form of herd instinct.
Fast forward through the centuries to the present day, Bren Cameron is the Paidhi, the chief diplomat and advisor to the Tabini, the essential shogun of the fractious aishidi'tat that governs much of the planet. Humans hold their own continent island of Mosphiera and the Atevi hold the rest of the world. This apartheid has been arranged to preserve the Atevi culture, or at least slow down the rate of change to something they can handle and prevent further conflict which the outnumbered humans could lose.
The Atevi are humanoid aliens, far larger (I have seen reference material advising between 8 and 10 feet) and stronger than humans, with black skin and golden eyes. The cover art by the superb Michael Whelan conveys them very well, which is a relief as certain other covers made them look like large, angry Rastafarians. My personal preference is for the cover of Invader, which shows a more beautiful Jago and well illustrates the size discrepancy between her and Bren Cameron. Bren on the Deceiver cover is also well done, grimly determined and sharply dressed.
But it is in the alien mind that CJ works her differences. Atevi have no word for, "friend" or one for love as a human understands it. They are fascinated by numerology, sometimes to the point of superstition and live wrapped in layers of decorum and devious diplomacy suitable for the imperial court of ancient Japan, which in many ways their society resembles.
Over the series of books, Bren Cameron, like many a colonial official, becomes more and more drawn in to the world of the Atevi, frankly going native. He eventually ceases to work for the human government taking up Atevi titles, but always working for peace and better relations between the parties, backing the human-oriented Tabini, over traditionalists or those eager to get their hands on human technology for their own ends.
Bren is engaging personality, intelligent, loyal to his friends, even when some of them do not understand the word. In fact his loyalty downward to his guards is in their view a mild form of insanity, as their loyalties run primarily upwards in manichi. But Bren’s most likeable characteristic is that while in no means a warrior, he is often first in the charge and last in the retreat. Even if the charge is in the form of a diplomatic discussion, he is always personally on the line.
Bren is the focus, originally because he controls the flow of technology, but later through his relationships with the powers of the world: Tabini, his grandmother Ilisidi (a combination of Lucretia Borgia and Eleanor of Aquitaine) a host of other nobles and Tabini’s son Cajeiri, the most accessible of the Atevi characters, a precocious preteen.
Bren is kept alive in these struggles by his bodyguards from the Assassin’s Guild: Banichi and his daughter Jago, an infuriatingly impenetrable character who becomes Bren’s lover.
This cast of characters rolls through civil war, insurrection, assassination, the reappearance of the starship, the debut of the aetvie into space, the debut of new aliens, a coup and more plots than Game of Thrones on crack.
Holding onto your chair yet? Good, all of this happened before Deceiver opens. Therein lies one issue for the reader. Do not start reading this series with this book. Past a point in a series, especially if you are CJ Cherryh, you simply stop making each book its own complete tale because otherwise your prologue would essentially be a college course. That’s less of a joke with CJ then you might think. Don’t read these books when you are tired, or as a Twinkie. This is steak and taters with a Syrah to wash it down. Be sharp and pay attention.
A reader looking for action may find CJ’s work a little off-putting. There is a decorous pace to these books, especially Deceiver. Things like the colors of the new bus for the estate assume an importance that some readers might find trying, but like the English “plays of manners” things are done just so in the Atevi world. Displays of wit and political acumen dominate. Shots are fired when you miss a point and are revealed as stupid, or out of the loop.
This world has less wars, or what humans would recognize as wars, than does our world. Battles are usually fought between differing sections of the Assassin’s Guild. Everyone has them and they stay loyal (usually) to the party they are attached to. So war on this world is more a struggle of elite security forces than what we are used to.
Still, I find the actual military struggles vague as to detail and confusing. Even when actual battle breaks out and, as happens a number of times, Bren and his companions are caught in it, it’s sometimes hard to figure out what is happening. I understand that these are not Dickson’s Dorsai, nor "Hammers Slammers" yet sometimes it would be nice to get some level of detail. Two cruisers of TF 58 pummeled a costal defense battleship, the 1st of the 72nd’s tank destroyers cleared enemy armor off the road block, for example, but such is not to be. The combats are scuffles of cracked shots from unseen enemies with little information on the forces, arms and tactics. This is a book on grand strategy.
So while we get the details of how households work, and why it was important that someone didn’t indicate in their periodic reports that members of a certain clan were seen in a certain household, action is sparse.
Young Cajeiri is a very useful device for explaining the Atevi to us. He has been raised on the voyaging starship for a considerable period, to preserve him from the convulsions of the coup against his father. The child is learning to be an Atevi under the tutelage of his traditional-minded grandmother Ilsidii. But the humans and the ships and gadgets fascinated him and he quickly establishes foothold in worlds, human and Atevi. Like most young people he wonders why they world is the way it is, allowing the author to explain without making it feel like an info dump.
Another area I would have liked to have seen developed is the relationship between Bren and Jago his eight foot and better bodyguard. It’s a little like having one of the warrior elf-queens fall for a hobbit I suppose. She admires him for his intelligence and courage and develops a manichi for him, which is to say the functional equivalent of love; for all that they often do not understand each other. Once, in a prior book, she slaps him because he tried to lead enemy forces away from his household staff. For a human, this is personal merit in self-sacrifice, the mutuality of led and leader (to be a king in Narnia is to be first in the charge, last in the retreat) to an aetevi, this is insanity. Atevi run toward their leader when in danger and they do not expose their leader for anything, no more than samurai would.
There are not enough scenes between these two for me and I wanted to see more of WHY they are together. It’s not mere sexual attraction, especially on her part. Something deeper operates, but I never feel that I get more than a glimpse of it, nor do I understand its depths or limitations. Tabini gifted Jago and her father’s services to Bren. What happens to her if Bren turns on Tabini or Tabini on him? At what point does species loyalty come up for her, or does it at all? I would understand the subtext of a human relationship (think of the scene in Wall Street when Darryl Hannah bails on Marty Sheen. He is no longer a player; she is the woman of a player, so she is no longer his, regardless of what came before.) However between Bren and Jago the subtext is indecipherable.
Deceiver culminates in sudden move by Bren and his small team of guards to move into the home of the Deceiver, Pairuti, a rather muted villain who has been manipulating events and destabilizing the local and nation governments with his machinations. There is a brief blaze of action that determines the outcome. But was the Deceiver the puppet-master, or just another puppet? Stay tuned for Betrayer…
If Deceiver has a fault it’s that like most middle books, it’s the road and not the destination and it very much feels that way. Interesting though the journey is and however amicable the company, you do sort of feel that it ends with less fanfare than one would hope. Pairuti seems a pallid villain for all that he almost ends Cameron’s career in the final pages. This is in part because as we only have Cameron and Cajeiri’s viewpoints, we see very little of what is going on, having to think our way through what we hear. Often the principals do not meet, or even communicate. Compare that with the earlier Downbelow Station with its multiple viewpoints set close to the prime movers of the drama and one can occasionally wish we had access to a few more heads.
In sum, if you like CJ Cherryh’s dense, political, plays of manners, you will jump at the change in Deceiver to spend more time with these Bren, Jago and Ilsidii, even if you sometimes don’t feel that you know some of them any better than when you first met them. It’s is a milieu story where the layers of relationships are the milieu and who owns what old house or even apartment tells you who will fight where for what. Admire the machinations and the manipulations. Try to see the next move as if you were Hercule Poirot in an alien world. Expect to work and to think.
These are not the easiest reads, but I think you will find a satisfaction at the end, similar to that found in reading Clavell’s Shogun, when you realize that the prime mover in the whole book was Mariko. You spent the whole time watching and you didn’t realize it till near the end that everyone was dancing to her tune. Same thing here, watch for the puppeteer.